Our legal fund has hit $17,486 — we’re really close to our primary goal of $20,000. We’re breathing a sigh of relief right now, since this is going to mean our legal costs for this first phase of the battle will be met (our lawyer is working on venue issues and other such significant preliminaries — it seems silly to have a trial in Ohio, where none of us live, and where Carrier did not live until right about the time he put together his lawsuit). Once that’s all settled we’ll know better what direction the case will go.
He’s supposed to be a smart guy. Maybe he’ll realize this is a losing argument for him, he’ll drop the whole thing, and we can all get back to writing, teaching, doing science, fighting for justice, and crushing Donald Trump, all much better uses of our time and money.
Don’t wish to appear mean ,but if he drops his lawsuit do we get our money back ?.
Just joking PZ ,please don’t banish me .
The excess money will be donated to Planned Parenthood. A very good choice IMHO.
Ooh. Almost at $19,000.
I agree with you, PZ. While I really like reading the research Carrier has done, and while I definitely think he’s a very smart guy, I think he sometimes gets upset with people far too easily and is prone toward inflammatory speech. I would hope he would agree to drop the issue but, in his view, doing so may would probably be admitting he was wrong. It’s a pity. Planned Parenthood could definitely use the money!
I wonder if Carrier really is stupid enough to keep pushing this case. There’s going to be a point where he’s gambling with way more money than he could ever have hoped to have lost from this supposed libel. Like generally, the whole SLAPP tactic works because the person doing the suing has enough money that it’s worth gambling with the legal fees, but I don’t think Carrier’s a super rich guy.
Rajid, Vivec; Ego seems to run on a different part of the CPU than general intelligence.
BTW since PZ is part of the librul elite, why does he not pay the lawyers from the petty cash fund of gold doubloons all libruls have?
Unrelated, (but regarding ego): “White House Staff Already Leaking Like Sieves” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/01/25/white-house-staff-already-leaking-like-sieves/
vivec @5: “I wonder if Carrier really is stupid enough to keep pushing this case.”
birgerjonansson #6 has the right of it: Whatever else Dick Carrier may be, stupid he ain’t. I have no idea why he thinks this lawsuit is a good idea, but if I were to assemble a short list of possible motivations that might be driving Carrier, Arrogance would definitely be on said list.
Whilst Mr Carrier is not overall-stupid, he is certainly, like everyone else, not-knowledgeable in certain areas; this can appear to be a degree of stupidity (e.g., misunderstanding his own limits (Dunning–Kruger effect?)), as well as varying degrees of other things (e.g., arrogance, narcissism, …).
I was shocked how much money I was charged by my (divorce) lawyer just for photocopying documents. If I had to do it again, I would photocopying all my documents myself and give it to them in triplicate.
Can I just say that I think it’s truly pathetic how important money is to the outcome of lawsuits like this (and court cases of all stripes)? I know, I know, I should finally completely divorce myself from the idea that courts are about facts and truth and justice and whatnot, but it still irks me. Whatever. I sent some money your way, but don’t take that as an endorsement of this system!
Saganite@#10:
Can I just say that I think it’s truly pathetic how important money is to the outcome of lawsuits like this (and court cases of all stripes)?
We have the best justice system money can buy!!
I am living proof that being fairly intelligent and making bad decisions is not at all mutually exclusive. I can chart my life on the basis of bad decisions. Of course, I may not be as smart as I suspect, but in any case, I think that smart people actually make just as bad decisions as anyone else — just for rather strangely worse reasons. Pride, though. Pride almost never works out well.
I’m in for $50.
Stupid is as stupid does. George W. Bush does not have low intelligence-his grades at Yale were better than Al Gore’s and he scored 1200 on the GREs- but he often seemed stupid, said and did stupid things as detailed in this article from Salon in 2000,” It’s the stupidity,stupid”.
http://www.salon.com/2000/10/24/bush_79/
Hurrah! Yahoo! You-all are over the top. $20.2K
ps Sorry about the confetti in the carpet. The balloons will come down eventually.
@13, hotspurphd,
You mean he had deeper bribe funds than Gore?
You mean he had deeper bribe funds than Gore?
No, I mean that,based on his reported GRE scores of 1200, he probably has superior intelligence, defined as an IQ score on the WAIS as 130 or higher, two SDs above the mean, at or above the 98th percentile. Hard to believe, I know.
Just to be clear- I’m not defending Bush in any way. I think his administration was a disaster and that he did stupid things. He was clearly quite ignorant and incurious. Just trying to be accurate. Also I don’t think a stupid person could be a decent fighter jet pilot, which he apparently was.